The Book of Jonah – For What Do You Live and For What Do You Die?

John Carter – July 10, 2016 – Jonah
For What Do You Live and For What Do You Die?

An Outline of a teaching on the Book of Jonah.

• Matthew 12:38-42
• Introduction
  • Sign of Jonah
  • For what do you live and what do you die?
  • “Don’t be like Jonah” -Joe Slunaker’s explanation of Jonah
  • What are you living and what are you dying for?
  • Also see: The aftermath of Mourning and Loss – https://musicatheologica.com/2016/07/09/the-aftermath-of-mourning-and-loss/
  • Jonah is the only person in the Book that wanted to die.
  • Message of Death is only half of the message (but successful)
• Text
  • Listen to who does and who does not want to die.
  • Jonah Chapter 1-4
• The Gospel is more than half of a story
  • The OT angry God misnomer – it’s only half the story
  • The NT happy God misnomer – it’s only half the story
  • The misguided view of Israelites as better than the gentiles – Abraham & blessed people is only half story
• Salvation from the Judgment of God is for All
  • Few prophets told to go to a foreign nation
  • Told to go to enemies (not east coast/west coast, or even Mexico)
  • Jonah knows he is not preaching just judgment and salvation too
• Obeying the Commands of the One and Only God
  • The boat was ‘thinking’, the sea was getting ‘angry’
  • Jonah and Jesus Parallels
    • On a boat in a storm, sleeping
    • Knew they could sleep peacefully.
      • Jesus knew his death needed to be at the appointed time
      • Jonah wanted to so he could avoid his appointed task.
  • A God of Heaven, earth, land and sea.
    • This is a foreign concept to the people of the Ancient Near East.
    • A regional God verses the God of everything.
  • Sign of Jonah
    • The only way people are going to live is through Jonah and Jesus’ death.
    • Death through the sea and of through the cross.
    • Only sign to this evil generation.
• Prayer of a Dead Man
  • YHWH cast him
  • YHWH drove him away.
  • YHWH brought his life from the pit.
    • There was no hope for salvation if thrown into the sea.
    • A message that Says ‘My death will bring your life.’
    • Salvation is not coming to Nineveh because of Jonah but because of YHWH.
• In The City of You Enemy
  • 3 days journey.
  • We pray for our nations repentance, but can we even imagine what that would look like? How would we even respond? Jonah gets made.
  • Nineveh repents in hope of possible salvation.
  • Jonah Wants to die
    • The Sailors want to live
    • The people of Nineveh want to live
• Judgments and Salvation
  • The relenting of Judgment.
  • To preach Judgment, without repentance and salvation is only half of the story.
  • Jonah was angry. He knew God is
    • Gracious
    • Merciful
    • slow to anger
    • Steadfast love
    • relenting from disaster
  • God didn’t have an attitude adjustment between the OT and NT. God never changed.
  • Have you ever been 1/3 of the way through presenting the Gospel and the person accepts?
• A Worm Kills a Plant
  • Jonah is double angry. I want to die.
  • Do you do well to be angry:
    • A City Lives – Jonah gets angry
    • A Plant Dies – Jonah gets angry
  • Should God not pity Nineveh?
  • If you don’t care about the people do you care about the animals?
  • Death is not funny.
• We are an Evil Generation
  • Matt 12:38-50
  • The men on Nineveh and the Queen of the South will come to judge the men of this evil generation.
  • Jonah was running, the Queen was coming.
  • It will be worse for the generation after Christ then it will be for the generation before Christ.
• For what do you live and what do you die?
  • For wicked men to be saved?
  • So you say “I am of Christ.”
    • Do you obey God?
    • Do you love others?
  • People are eternal souls.